Duffy, purported daughter in contact, lawyer confirms

The lawyer for a woman who claims to be the daughter of Sen. Mike Duffy has confirmed that the senator spoke with her with this week, but it is not clear if this means a court action to establish whether Duffy is her father will be dropped.

Jordan Press, Ottawa Citizen

Updated: July 23, 2014

Sen. Mike Duffy, seen on Prince Edward Island last week. Andrew Collins / Special to the Ottawa Citizen

The lawyer for a woman who claims to be the daughter of Sen. Mike Duffy has confirmed that the senator spoke with her with this week, but it is not clear if this means a court action to establish whether Duffy is her father will be dropped.

On his Facebook page, lawyer Jorge Alejandro Razuri wrote that Duffy had been in touch, but “Out of respect for the parties we will not be making any further comments or statements at this moment.”

Razuri had urged the suspended senator to show a “clear example of morals and ethics” by either saying that Karen Duffy, 32, is his daughter, or providing a DNA sample to prove otherwise.

Razuri said in an email to the Citizen earlier in the week that Duffy should set an example and appear before the court in Lima, Peru that is adjudicating Karen Duffy’s request to have him officially named her father.

Razuri said the legal process involved in the woman’s claim, including wrangling over international law and diplomacy, was “cumbersome” and could take weeks to work through.

Mike Duffy, Razuri said, could simplify matters by either attending court in Peru or providing a DNA sample. He said Duffy could show “a clear example of morals and ethics as demands the high position that he carries as a senator of Canada.”

“It is clear and obvious that he is well equipped to answer and defend himself,” Razuri said.

Mike Duffy has said several allegations by the woman’s mother that he is the biological father of Karen are not accurate. In an email last week after the story was first reported in Maclean’s, Duffy said he would “respond to any legal process from Peru in an appropriate manner.”

Duffy declined to comment to the Citizen. However, CBC News reported Tuesday night that Mike and Karen Duffy had a two-hour conversation on FaceTime.

The CBC, which spoke to Karen Duffy, said she wasn’t able to share what Mike Duffy told her.

“All I can tell you is that I was approached by my dad. He wrote me yesterday and we now have a conversation going on,” Karen Duffy is quoted as telling CBC News. “It was a beautiful thing that happened. I am super happy.”

It is not clear what this contact means for the court action.

Karen Duffy has long been interested in meeting her father, she has asserted, and had turned to the courts in Peru for help. Her lawyer, Razuri, sent a letter to Duffy in early December explaining the situation and laying out Karen Duffy’s claims before the court.

The letter was addressed to Mike Duffy via the Senate of Canada, but it arrived weeks after the Senate stripped Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau of all benefits, including their offices and mailboxes, over allegations of “gross negligence” with their expenses, so it is possible he did not receive it.

According to the letter sent to Mike Duffy, Yvette Benites met him in 1979. (Benites told Maclean’s she met Duffy in 1981). Benites had been held at the now defunct Prison for Women in Kingston, Ont., and awaited extradition to her native Peru after being convicted of drug trafficking.

Benites claims she met Duffy while paroled in Ottawa, delivering a birthday present to Duffy from his now-deceased sister, Moira. According to Benites, the two had an affair and she became pregnant.

Benites was deported to Peru before she gave birth. A copy of the birth certificate Razuri supplied to the Citizen shows Karen Duffy Benites was born March 15, 1982. Her father is listed as Mike Clayton Duffy — though Mike Duffy’s middle name is Dennis — and the certificate says he was a Canadian TV reporter living in Ottawa.

In the December 2013 letter, Razuri writes that Benites unsuccessfully tried to contact Mike Duffy about the birth. Karen Duffy was brought up being told that Mike Duffy was her father.

He then asked Mike Duffy to agree to some “process of conciliation” as opposed to going to court so that the matter of her identity could be resolved “swiftly in the easiest and most peaceful way possible and with complete discretion, being that it is an (intimate) family matter.”

On March 7, a court in the Peruvian capital of Lima agreed to hear Karen Duffy’s lawsuit.

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